They formed a curious physical contrast, these two women in this moment.  Joan, radiant, serene, sat upright in her chair, her head slightly thrown back, her fine hands clasping one another so strongly that the delicate muscles could be traced beneath the smooth white skin.  Madge, with puckered brows, leant forward in a crouching attitude, her thin nervous hands stretched out towards the fire.

“How does one know when one is serving God?” she asked after a pause, apparently rather of herself than of Joan.  “It seems so difficult.”

“One feels it,” explained Joan.

“Yes, but didn’t they all feel it,” Madge suggested.  She still seemed to be arguing with herself rather than with Joan.  “Nietzsche.  I have been reading him.  They are forming a Nietzsche Society to give lectures about him—­propagate him over here.  Eleanor’s in it up to the neck.  It seems to me awful.  Every fibre in my being revolts against him.  Yet they’re all cocksure that he is the coming prophet.  He must have convinced himself that he is serving God.  If I were a fighter I should feel I was serving God trying to down Him.  How do I know which of us is right?  Torquemada—­Calvin,” she went on, without giving Joan the chance of a reply.  “It’s easy enough to see they were wrong now.  But at the time millions of people believed in them—­felt it was God’s voice speaking through them.  Joan of Arc!  Fancy dying to put a thing like that upon a throne.  It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.  You can say she drove out the English—­saved France.  But for what?  The Bartholomew massacres.  The ruin of the Palatinate by Louis XIV.  The horrors of the French Revolution, ending with Napoleon and all the misery and degeneracy that he bequeathed to Europe.  History might have worked itself out so much better if the poor child had left it alone and minded her sheep.”

“Wouldn’t that train of argument lead to nobody ever doing anything?” suggested Joan.

“I suppose it would mean stagnation,” admitted Madge.  “And yet I don’t know.  Are there not forces moving towards right that are crying to us to help them, not by violence, which only interrupts—­delays them, but by quietly preparing the way for them?  You know what I mean.  Erasmus always said that Luther had hindered the Reformation by stirring up passion and hate.”  She broke off suddenly.  There were tears in her eyes.  “Oh, if God would only say what He wants of us,” she almost cried; “call to us in trumpet tones that would ring through the world, compelling us to take sides.  Why can’t He speak?”

“He does,” answered Joan.  “I hear His voice.  There are things I’ve got to do.  Wrongs that I must fight against.  Rights that I must never dare to rest till they are won.”  Her lips were parted.  Her breasts heaving.  “He does call to us.  He has girded His sword upon me.”

Madge looked at her in silence for quite a while.  “How confident you are,” she said.  “How I envy you.”